Watch this video (from December 2013) of the four Republican candidates for lieutenant governor talking about why they feel creationism must be taught in Texas public schools.* Warning: Weapons-grade ignorance unfolds. I will not be responsible for any exploded heads resulting from watching this.

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(Note: David Dewhurst, who speaks first, is the sitting lieutenant governor of the state.)

This idea that teaching reality and facts is “politically correct” is just so much fertilizer, too. The politics of teaching science is a fully owned product of the far-right’s attempts to illegally insert religion into the school system. Evolution isn’t politics, it’s science. And science is a reflection of our attempts to understand how the Universe works. Evolution isn’t a guess, or a cynical move to promote atheism, or whatever feverishly imagined bugaboo flies around in the heads of these four men. It’s the driving force that runs through modern biology, much like gravity is to astronomy, or the periodic table is to chemistry.

Map of where states allow the tax-funded teaching of creationism. Click for details.

IN THE NAME AND BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF TEXAS, I, __________, do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of __________________ of the State of Texas, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, anddefend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State, so help me God.

Emphasis mine. But then, the emphasis should be everybody’s, shouldn’t it?